Gill Meller
SOURCING
A plate of fresh mozzarella with sourdough bread, good olive oil and salt is one of my all-time favourite dishes. I love the purity of mozzarella’s form, its light and milky texture and its delicate, cool flavour.
The majority of mass-produced mozzarella is made with cow’s milk. But the far richer milk of the water buffalo makes the very best – mozzarella di bufala. Buffalo mozzarella from the Campania region carries a DOC (controlled designation of origin) label, meaning it must be made in the traditional way in that area of southern Italy.
The process of making this stretchy cheese is relatively straightforward. Citric acid is first added to pasteurised milk to raise the acidity. Rennet is used to separate the curds from the whey (in the case of traditional Italian buffalo mozzarella, this is animal rennet, but vegetarian rennet is used in some other mozzarellas). The curds are cut or torn into pieces, a process the Italians call mozzatura, meaning ‘cutting by hand’. The whey is heated and when it reaches 80°C the curds are re-submerged in it to soften them before being stretched and folded, then shaped into balls. It’s this heating and stretching process that gives the cheese its celebrated texture. The cheese is usually packaged in its own whey, and has a short shelf-life.
Burrata is another unbelievably delicious Italian fresh cheese. It’s very similar to traditional mozzarella (though usually made with cow’s milk) but is filled with rich cream. It’s softer and even milkier than mozzarella, and almost flows when you tear into it. Burrata is best eaten fresh, within 24 hours of making, and purists would say it should not be refrigerated.
Good burrata and buffalo mozzarella cost a bit more but are well worth it. Well-made cow’s milk mozzarella can be decent, but blocks of cheap, highly processed pizza mozzarella are likely to be rubbery and hard. Concerns have been raised over the welfare of some farmed buffalo in Italy and there are very few organic Italian buffalo mozzarellas, but good quality organic British buffalo mozzarella is now available.
Mozzarella is well known as a pizza topping and it does melt rather deliciously into soft, milky strings: it’s hard to resist when torn and stirred into a hot risotto or stuffed inside rice patties and fried to make arancini. But I think the best buffalo mozzarellas, with their subtle, lactic tang, beg to be enjoyed uncooked. The combination of mozzarella with ripe tomatoes or thinly sliced prosciutto has delighted families throughout Italy for hundreds of years. These pairings are hard to beat. However, mozzarella is also wonderful with sweet roasted beetroots, chargrilled asparagus or, if you’re up for a bit of foraging, with wilted nettles and olive oil (see next recipe).
MOZZARELLA WITH NETTLES AND LENTILS
Peppery, dressed nettles make a characterful partner to creamy mozzarella or burrata. You could use chard or spinach in the same way when stingers aren’t around. And any lentils that hold their shape when cooked can be substituted for the Puy. Serves 4
100g freshly picked nettle tops, well washed
1 small garlic clove, grated
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra to finish
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 balls of buffalo mozzarella or burrata (125g each), or 2 larger ones
50g cooked Puy lentils
5–6 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 5mm rounds
Sea salt and black pepper
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the nettles and cook, stirring once or twice, for 2–3 minutes.
Drain the nettles and rinse them immediately under cold running water to fix their green colour and stop the cooking process. Drain again, then squeeze the excess liquid from the nettles.
Tip the cooked nettles on to a large board and chop them fairly finely. Transfer to a bowl and add the garlic, olive oil and wine vinegar. Season generously with salt and pepper and stir to combine.
Place a ball (or ½ large ball) of mozzarella on each serving plate. Spoon over the nettles and scatter over the lentils and sliced spring onions. Finish with an extra trickle of olive oil and a sprinkling of flaky salt and freshly ground pepper. Serve with good bread.